Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Attorney Wilson Approaches the Bench

Again proving that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client, Attorney pro se Linwood Wilson has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Kent (DE) County, Durham County, and no fewer than 31 individuals (ranging from his estranged wife Barbara to Beau Biden(!), the vice president’s son and the current Attorney General of Delaware). The former DA’s chief investigator, Christian singer, and ethical sinkhole alleges that his arrest for possible spousal abuse in fact involved malicious prosecution, concealment of evidence, conspiracy, supervisory violations, and fabrication of false evidence—all matters of which, it goes without saying, his service under Mike Nifong gave him intimate knowledge.

Wilson’s 92-page complaint, filed alongside 10 exhibits (totaling some 355 pages), takes 10 pages just to identify the various people that he’s suing. Attorney Wilson suggests a wide-ranging and multi-layered conspiracy of his wife, her alleged “paramour,” a Delaware police officer with whom she also allegedly was having an affair, his wife’s family, some of his wife’s friends and co-workers, some law enforcement officials in Durham County, and various law enforcement officials in Delaware—all working in concert to deny Linwood Wilson his constitutional rights. Remarkably, until the filing of this complaint, this vast conspiracy went undetected—not by the media, nor by state legislators in Delaware or North Carolina, nor by various watchdog agencies. How could this be?

In the real world, the chief purpose of the complaint seems to be less exposing a previously undetected “conspiracy” than humiliating Wilson’s estranged wife and her alleged “paramour,” Joseph Curtis. Attorney Wilson describes his wife as “a mentally troubled woman who had abandoned her marriage.” Indeed, she had “plenty of Zoloft at home,” yet was caught going to the pharmacy for more. Wilson recounts the following alleged event at a local Mexican restaurant: “Defendant [Barbara] Wilson drank a large double margarita (while taking Zoloft, Clonazepam, and Xanax) and got extremely drunk, telling Plantiff [Linwood] how she wanted to rip his clothes off and have sex with him on the table.” Attorney Wilson describes this evening as “the best [the marriage] had been in months.”

But, alas, Barbara Wilson was leading a double life, according to her husband. She was having an affair with her “paramour” at the workplace, while at their “marital home,” Barbara Wilson “sat next to her husband each night, wanted [sic] him to rub her feet and legs.” The “paramour,” meanwhile, “ran from Wilson’s marital home like a dog with his tail between his legs” when confronted by Linwood.

The gap between Attorney Wilson and Plaintiff Wilson is sometimes difficult to follow. For instance, in paragraph 48 of the complaint, Attorney Wilson speaks of “our marriage” (the marriage between Barbara and Plaintiff Wilson); at other occasions, he uses “I” rather than “plaintiff” to describe his recollections of alleged events.

Attorney Wilson claims that his client has suffered various injuries, including “economic” harm, presumably a result of the marriage’s breakup shattering the “Voiceovers by Wilson” business that the husband and wife planned to start. Attorney Wilson also claims that his client has “suffered irreparable harm to his reputation.” How? After the exposures of the lacrosse case, Linwood Wilson had no reputation to lose.

Attorney Wilson is particularly fond of the phrase “upon information and belief”—an approach used in civil suits when lawyers believe that something occurred but for which they do not, before discovery, possess hard evidence to substantiate. But in the Wilson complaint, virtually every “factual” claim comes not from any evidence he possesses but from his own . . . beliefs. To give a sampling from the complaint:

“Upon information and belief Durham Coca-Cola was already aware of the affair.”

“Upon information and belief . . . Barbara Wilson had been reportedly locking herself in her office at work and crying all the time.”

“Upon information and belief, a display of public affection occurred between Defendants Wilson and Curtis, in Curtis’ car on the way back from NCCU.”

“Upon information and belief, Barbara Wilson was the only one who got a raise in the past 2-3 years.”

“Upon information and belief, the ‘Delaware Conspiracy’ along with co-conspirators . . . from North Carolina, made a ‘rush to judgment’ and manufactured changes.”

“Upon information and belief, Defendant Deputy Reimann was the source of information for Defendant Weaver, thus thickening the conspiracy more and more between North Carolina law enforcement and Delaware law enforcement.”

“Upon information and belief, it was common knowledge throughout the legal system in Dover, DE.”

“Upon information and belief, this is when the conspiracy was formed . . . to make it appear that Barbara Wilson was afraid of her husband (Plaintiff) and that he (Plaintiff) was crazy.” [As an aside, Barbara Wilson needn’t have entered into a conspiracy to have accomplished these goals: she simply could have told people to read this complaint.]

The strangest of these “information and belief” structures comes in paragraph 49, when Attorney Wilson writes, “Upon information and belief . . . Beth Greenman called Plaintiff [Linwood Wilson] and advised him that “If you don’t get Barbara away from [her alleged ‘paramour’] Joe he is going to ruin her and destroy your marriage.” The person who wrote these words was a party to the alleged call. This is his complaint. Is Wilson suggesting that he himself doesn’t know if the call occurred (the only reason for an “upon information and belief” construction)?

The anti-Linwood “conspiracy,” Attorney Wilson claims, intensified after his wife discovered that Linwood planned to involuntarily commit her for mental observation. At that point, Barbara Wilson decided to “flea [sic!!] the jurisdiction of North Carolina in order to avoid commitment proceedings.”

Attorney Wilson also appeared to have taken writing lessons from the grammatically-challenged Tracey Cline. Consider, for example, this head-scratching sentence: “Also none of it was relevant to Delaware since, according to Defendant Weaver himself, the fact that all this supposedly occurred in another jurisdiction, North Carolina, which Defendant Weaver had nothing to do with.”

Some of the “evidence” proffered by Attorney Wilson, alas, undermines the position of his client. For instance, Attorney Wilson recounts a conversation between Barbara Wilson and her husband, in which she told Linwood that she wanted the marriage to work, but that she had some “conditions.” That admission might sound damaging to Barbara, until Attorney Wilson reveals the wife’s conditions: that Linwood “was not to call her cell and ask where she was or what she was doing”; and that Linwood was not to “follow” her. If, in fact, the unemployed Linwood Wilson was following his wife around, or frequently calling her up asking her what she was doing, it would seem as if he was engaging in, at the least, emotional abuse; and, at the most, stalking.

In any case, Attorney Wilson says that his client immediately discerned that his wife wasn’t serious in hoping that the marriage would work—a conclusion he based on his “training and experience as a police investigator, private investigator, and District Attorney investigator, for over 38 years.”

Or take this charming anecdote from Attorney Wilson after his wife’s alleged “paramour” visited the “marital home” to check on Barbara Wilson’s well-being. Linwood Wilson admits to screaming at Curtis, “Don’t come into my home, push me out of the way, and disgrace me, my wife, or my home in this way or I’ll blow your f_king head off!” Again: a person charged with spousal abuse is admitting that he threatened to “blow [the] f_king head off” the man he believed was sleeping with his estranged wife.

As the marriage deteriorated, Attorney Wilson admits that his client refused to have sex with his wife, as the “Plantiff knew that would damage his case, if the marriage didn’t work out, from 20 plus years as a private investigator. A field in which Plaintiff had testified as an expert witness over 200 times . . . throughout North Carolina.” Demonstrating his client’s classless nature, Attorney Wilson passes along the fact that his wife “started using dildo’s” to pleasure herself.

The Linwood Wilson who comes through in this complaint is an enraged man, something of a control freak, clearly humiliated by his wife’s apparent infidelity. How he could escape sanctions for filing such a bizarre complaint remains to be seen.

Finally, perhaps the strangest or the many strange clauses from the Wilson filing was the following: “Defendant Eric Campen stated loudly in the lobby of the Durham County Sheriff’s Department and Courthouse in front of Deputy Tom McRae, several unknown deputies, about ten people in the lobby, one [sic] of whom was Victoria Peterson and Richard Porter, “You are a convicted felon! You will never get your guns back! You know better than to even try this!.” “I’ve seen your handy work on the computers, I know how good you are!” The truth is that Plaintiff Wilson has never been convicted of any felony and why was Campen tampering with evidence that he was not authorized to (computer). When Plaintiff Wilson and Richard Porter left the lobby of the Sheriff’s Department several unknown bystanders stated, “We didn’t know you were a convicted felon!” An obvious character assassination and deformation.”

Leaving aside the implausibility that the events occurred even remotely as Wilson described, and further leaving aside Wilson’s hilarious claim that a government official allegedly saying false things about him constitutes “deformation,” the vignette begs the question: what was Durham’s resident bigot and homophobe, Victoria Peterson, doing milling around the sheriff’s office lobby?

It is enraging that such a pathetic collection of incompetents, misfits, fools, idiots and baffoons, including Linwood Wilson, were allowed to terrorize innocent students of Duke University with the force of law in Durham County, and no good men of Duke, including particularly Richard Brodhead and Robert Steele, but including every member of the Board of Trustees, were willing to stand up against this nasty mob.

It would be just deserts to have the inexecrable Linwood Wilson feasted upon interminably by his host of fleas.

I'd like to compare this document to Sid (Justice4Nifong) Harr's civil rights lawsuit against Duke University. FWIW, he has those documents posted on his J4N blog. Hilarious reading, if you have the time.I wonder if they're getting their legal advice from the same source...

What law school conferred a juris doctorate on Linwood Wilson? After reading his current filing one would have to assume that at the very least whoever sponsored his application to the North Carolina Bar would have to have taken his phone off the hook.

Does Linwood know what spell check is? Does Harr know he is so bad,he is good? Does Cline know that DA does not stand for dumb ass except in Durham? Does Nifong give free legal advice to all three of these whackos?

Team Nifong included jailed, disbarred and soon-to-be bankrupt Mike Nifong, crazy as a flea Linwood Wilson, crazy as a "tic" Tracy Cline, crazy homophobe Victoria Peterson, crazy litigant Sidney Haar, and wacky serial prevaricator Brian Meehan. Was there ever such a team as Team Nifong?

Linwood's conspiracy does not include one business or one agency, but multiple businesses and agencies and not just in one state but across state lines, and indeed, along the whole Eastern Seaboard, and not only do these conspirators have mad skills, they possess Mission Impossible-level wiretapping and surveilance abilities. This is going to be THE BIGGEST NEWS STORY EVER! MOO! Gregory

My theory is that there is a big cloud of black karma hanging over the heads of those who tried to frame the lacrosse players. It has not been a good year for Tracey Cline, Linwood Wilson, Brian Meehan and many others involved in the conspiracy. What will remove the cloud is truthfulness, acceptance of responsibilty, and repentance. The chances of that happening in Durham? Zilch.

It hurts that the people you believed in, the people you trusted, were so obnoxiously "troubled" and should have been "irrelevant." Yes, they've had a lot of "personal travails" including alleged murder, stalking, bankruptcy, firing from their positions of supposed trust (even the one who founded the company that fired him), arson, child neglect, perjury, actions leading to disbarment, actions that look like they should lead to disbarment, etc.

We pointed out early and often that these people were crazy and/or stupid. We pointed out that their actions and words made no sense. But you chose to believe them. Hurts when you're wrong, doesn't it?

Maybe next time you won't base decisions on prejudice and hatred, and maybe you won't rush to judgment but weigh the facts and look at the actors without prejudice. Then it won't hurt so much.

Linwood was crazy in challenging Joe Cheshire outside the courtroom early on in the case, and he was crazy with his interviews of Crystal Mangum. We pointed that out along the way. Where were you?

I am not an attorney so I have tried to limit my comments in the legal arena.I recently said some things in support of Rick Perry that were not as true as I hoped they were - at the time.But, dammit, I do have some real World expertise regarding the drugs Linwood says his ex was taking and I can say without any doubt that regular use of those drugs plus some daily Vodka intake (let us be real) will reliably produce an abundance of Craziness. It is quite possible that Linwood the scumbag is not the only guilty party here.Seriously, lots of lives are being destroyed these days because sleep/anti-anxiety drugs are being prescribed to folks who already self-medicate themselves with booze. It just adds up to total raving madness sometimes.

The apparently troubled people who are described in this blog are actually deeply troubled.

Yet, every one of them has, or has had, a responsible role in the criminal investigation, prosecution, or defamation of utterly innocent young men.

We need to know who these people are, what they did, how they were selected, how they were rewarded, and what has happened to them since. Otherwise, we will have no clue how to defend against their kind in the future.

Linwood Wilson was the chief investigator for the DA in the most notorious case of prosecutor misconduct in a decade. He was to have been a key witness in the criminal prosecution of four innocent men. He is still scheduled to be a key witness in the civil case filed by several dozen students victimized by these folk.

Oh yes, this creature is relevant,in the same way the disgusting, rotting remains of a dead rat may be relevant to tracking down the source of the Bubonic plague.

Many thanks for your concern with my time; it's always good to know that readers are looking out for my best interests.

As to your implicit criticism of the three sets of players' attorneys for filing a lawsuit against a figure you deem "irrelevant . . . in the overall scheme of things," I respectfully disagree.

Not only was Wilson the key figure in several significant, ethically dubious events in the case (allegedly pressuring witnesses to corroborate Mangum's various tales of woe; violating procedure by interviewing Mangum alone after the DNA hearing, at which she developed a new story that conveniently minimized the significance of DNA), his hiring itself was of critical significance, since it provided key insight into Nifong's unethical mindset. (I'm also a bit uncertain why, if Wilson was an "irrelevant person" to the case, Nifong had him present at all the fall 2006 hearings.) Indeed, given that Wilson repeatedly cited his experience as a DA's investigator to justify his handling of his wife, I'd be very surprised if the revelations of this filing didn't come up in Wilson's deposition, if and when the deposition ever occurs.

Linwood IS relevant......if for no other reason than to give those of us who have kept up with the rape hoax a change for comic relief. I remain astounded at the ignorance in the Durham DA's office. It is beyond vile that this creep would make a public statement about his ex-wife's personal intimate habits. What kind of cretin would do that and still claim to be a pillar of Christian virtue? I also find it comical and weird that Victoria Peterson who hates white people would be nosing around anywhere near Linwood, who is notorious for his racist behavior.As a woman of color, I find him beneath contempt....but I suppose that's where the whole sorry lot of these people dwell.

"But, dammit, I do have some real World expertise regarding the drugs Linwood says his ex was taking and I can say without any doubt that regular use of those drugs plus some daily Vodka intake (let us be real) will reliably produce an abundance of Craziness. It is quite possible that Linwood the scumbag is not the only guilty party here."

If what Linwood says is true, you're right. However, we know he's a liar, and he has a motive to lie in this case.

I'm not saying it's definitely a lie, but Linwood needs to produce some evidence.

The problem with believing Linwood .......is Linwood. Any scumbag who would comment on his wife's use of a sex toy in a public complaint is NOT to be trusted as a reliable source to describe her substance use or abuse. Does anybody think this guy actually expects to prevail in this action?

Well, thanks for keeping us abreast of the stunning examples of gross incompetence/sheer inaneness from these persons who have had (and many of whom continue to have) important responsibilities in the Durham criminal justice system or at Duke. Will we ever understand how so many ungrounded people came to hold so many influential positions in Durham?

Linwood was also a bully for Nifong with his taunting of an attorney outside the courtroom and in front of the media and his actions with witnesses. That appears to be how he acts with people he even claims to love-unless you believe his huge nationwide conspiracy.

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I am from Higgins Beach, in Scarborough, Maine, six miles south of Portland. After spending five years as track announcer at Scarborough Downs, I left to study fulltime in graduate school, where my advisor was Akira Iriye. I have a B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. At Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, I teach classes in 20th century US political, constitutional, and diplomatic history; in 2007-8, I was Fulbright Distinguished Chair for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University.

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